Help!

[fly]

Yesterday afternoon after a short trip to the diy\'s i noticed a small amount of steam coming from the lhs of my bonnet, i opened her up to find an oily substance had spewed all over the top of the engine, this panicked me greatly, although after a few minutes i discovered that it was a coolant leak, emanating from an area some where under the strut brace, i checked both coolant tanks and found them to be nearly empty, so topped them up so i could get home, i quickly phoned rxheaven, and one of their guys informed me that it was most likely to be a broken water pump or seal, anyway having only bought my rex 2 weeks ago, i havent arranged any breakdown cover yet, i was wondering wether, if i kept topping up the coolant, if it was safe driving to the garage which is about 15 miles away, or is it best just to buy AA cover now.

I bought the car a couple of weeks ago from Homerun Cars, and ive already had a holey radiator that had to be replaced and some of my dashboard warning lights have gone jittery, flicking on and off at completely random times!

[Donato]

Putting cold coolant in a hot engine is very bad news!!!!! Can lead to things cracking!!

If its not running to hot i.e if your own open road and you are getting decent air flow you could be ok for a very short journey keeping the revs as low as possible and CONSTANTLY CHECKING THE TEMPERATURE GAUGE!!!
But if you have 15 miles of traffic ahead of you i really WOULD NOT advise it mate.

To be honest with you i wouldn\'t risk it, the cost of getting the AA sorted first would be considerably less than a new engine!!

Hope you get it sorted

Cheers

Donato

[Martin]

wheres RXHeaven?

it seems everyones having some kind of coolant problem, me included:(

[tomrex]

i don\'t think i\'d risk it mate! i had trouble with mine, it drove fine but i didn\'t know what damage i was doing.
i ended up renting a large car transporter trailer, £100 fully refundable deposit and it only cost £30.
better than a cooked engine. or buy a £5 tow rope and get a mate to tow ya, simple!!!
all the best

[antnicuk]

I have owned rotaries for over ten years,  and one piece of advice that i would give to any rotary owner is buy a water temp gauge.......  The are very easy to fit,  FD\'s even have a blanking plug in the thermostat housing so you just screw the sender in and away you go.   The standard gauge is renown for being absolutely usless!  If it goes up more than the standard 1/3 - 1/2 reading, then your engine is probably suffering damage.  I have an Autometer water temp gauge that moves between 160 and 220 degrees F and the standard gauge never moves.

[Martin]

so is it normal for it to go up to 90 -100 on traffic etc?

[gsb876]

I\'d like to join this debate as i am having probs with cooling system too, when driving on motorway the temp\'s around 77-80oC, however when in traffic it starts to rise to 85-95oC??

Any help would be great

[bnaellis]

It\'s normal no need to worry. From memory as standard fans don\'t flex their muscles till 95 oC

rgds

[antnicuk]

as brian said, it is perfectly normal, as the first fan comes on around 95 and the second one at 103 or 105,  over 100 isnt boiling as the system is under pressure and the boiling point of water is higher under pressure,   just dont thrash it after you have been sitting in traffic for a while.     If you get a PFC you can set the fans to come on when you like.  I have mine set to 88 and 93. so my temp never gets above 95 before it starts coming down again.   On the motorway it sits at 65 - 70 as i have an electric water pump.

[Ed_RX7]

How would I set the fans to come on earlier on the PFC...I have the commander.